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{{Short description|Austrian ethnologist and professor}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}
{{more footnotes|date=September 2017}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf
| honorific_suffix = [[Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|FRAI]]
| image = Fürer Siebmacher205 - Nürnberg.jpg
| alt =
| caption = [[Coat of arms]] of the House of Fürer-Haimendorf
| birth_name = Christopher von Fürer-Haimendorf
| birth_date = {{Birth-date|22 June 1909}}
| birth_place =
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1995|06|11|1909|06|22|df=yes}}
| death_place =
| other_names =
| occupation = Ethnologist
| years_active = 1943–1982
| known_for = Fieldwork in Northeast India and in the central region of what is now the state of Telangana and in Nepal
| notable_works = The Chenchus, The Reddis of the Bison Hills, The Raj Gonds of Adilibad
| spouse = [[Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf|Betty Barnardo]]
}}

'''Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf''' or '''Christopher von Fürer-Haimendorf''' [[Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|FRAI]] (22 June 1909 – 11 June 1995) was an [[Austrians|Austrian]] [[ethnologist]] and professor at the [[SOAS, University of London|School of Oriental and African Studies at London]]. He spent forty years studying tribal cultures in [[Northeast India]], in the central region of what is now the state of [[Telangana]] and in [[Nepal]].<ref name=obit>{{cite journal|author= Turin, Mark |year=1997| title=In Memory of Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf| journal= Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies| volume=17|issue= 2|pages=1–3| url=http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol17/iss2/6 }}</ref> He was married to British ethnologist of India and Nepal, [[Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf|Betty Barnardo]].

==Biography==
Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf was born in an Austrian [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocratic]] family. Very early he developed an interest in [[Indian culture]], having read [[Rabindranath Tagore]] as a young man.

He studied [[anthropology]] and [[archaeology]] in Vienna and there he was most influenced by [[Robert von Heine-Geldern]]. He wrote his thesis on the tribal social organization of the peoples of [[Assam]] and northwestern [[Burma]] (''Staat und Gesellschaft bei den Völkern Assams und des nordwestlichen Birmas'')<ref>{{cite web|url=http://austria-forum.org/af/Wissenssammlungen/Biographien/F%C3%BCrer-Haimendorf,_Christoph_von|title=Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von - Biographien im Austria-Forum|work=Austria-Forum}}</ref> and in later years was inspired by [[John Henry Hutton]], a fellow researcher of the tribal communities in that region.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first=Alan |last=Macfarlane |chapter=Hutton, John Henry (1885–1968) |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=January 2011 |section-url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53568 |accessdate=8 November 2013 |chapter-url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name=obit />

After his thesis, von Fürer-Haimendorf moved to London in order to establish contact with the main anthropologists of his time, such as [[Bronislaw Malinowski]]. By 1936 he traveled to India, where he worked among the [[Naga people]] and established good friendships among the local administrators of the [[British Raj]]. After five months and great effort, he succeeded in learning the local language and was able to do without an [[interpreter]]. From then onwards, von Fürer-Haimendorf would insist that it was of the utmost importance for an ethnologist or [[ethnographer]] to learn well the language of the people who were the subject of the fieldwork in order to be competent in his or her studies.<ref name="soasobit"/>

In 1938, von Fürer-Haimendorf married [[Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf|Betty Barnardo]], a colleague. At the time he only made a brief visit to Europe and returned to India, so that at the outbreak of [[World War II]] he found himself in British territory holding a [[Third Reich]] passport.
He was arrested by the colonial authorities, but with a great degree of politeness and sadness, for they were good friends of his. Thus he was confined to [[Hyderabad State]] in [[South India]]. As time went by von Fürer-Haimendorf earned the trust of the local authorities, who could see that he had no Nazi sympathies. He was then able to do some of his best fieldwork ever while living among the [[Chenchu]], [[Bhil]], [[Konda Reddis|Reddi]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft8r29p2r8&chunk.id=d0e195&toc.id=d0e195&brand=ucpress|title=Tribes of India|work=cdlib.org}}</ref> and the [[Raj Gond]] [[Adivasi]] of present-day interior Telangana.

Thanks to friendly government officers, which included fellow ethnologist [[Verrier Elwin]], von Fürer-Haimendorf was able to obtain a post as Special Officer and Assistant Political Officer to the [[North East Frontier Agency]], so he could move back to Northeast India. He studied the [[Apatani people|Apatani]]s in 1944–45, when there were tensions in the area owing to the [[Japanese conquest of Burma]].

When the war was over von Fürer-Haimendorf was named Advisor for Tribes and [[Backward Classes]] to the [[Nizam of Hyderabad|Nizam's]] Government of Hyderabad and returned to the South where he continued to do ethnographic fieldwork while he was engaged as government officer. In 1953, when the [[Kingdom of Nepal]] opened to the outside world, von Fürer-Haimendorf did not want to lose the opportunity to visit the then little-known country and became the first foreigner who was able to do research among the [[Demographics of Nepal|peoples of Nepal]].

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf lived his old age in London, where he became professor of anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. In 1987, following the death of his wife, his health suffered a decline from which he did not recover. He died on 11 June 1995 and was buried in London.<ref name="soasobit">{{cite journal |author1=Alan Macfarlane |author2=Mark Turin |title=Professor Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf 1909–1995 |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |date=1996 |volume=59 |issue=3|pages=548–551 |doi=10.1017/s0041977x00030664|doi-access=free }}</ref>

==Works==
Von Fürer-Haimendorf published 3,650 pages of ethnographic notes and took more than 10,000 photographs.<ref>[http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/TEXTS/FURER3.PDF Review: Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, ''Life among Indian tribes: the autobiography of an anthropologist'', Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1990]</ref> He also shot a total of over 100 hours of 16 mm [[documentary film]]s, giving a glimpse on the way of life of certain little-known cultures that were poised to change irreversibly.

*Published writings:
**''The Naked Nagas'' (1939)
**''The Chenchus'' (1943)
**''The Reddis of the Bison Hills'' (1945)
**''The Raj Gonds of Adilabad'' (1948)
**''The Apatanis and their neighbours'' (1962)
**''Morals and merit'' (1967)<ref>Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, ''Morals and merit: a study of values and social controls in South Asian societies''</ref>
**''The Sherpas of Nepal'' (1964)
**''The Bagoria Bhil'' (1964)<ref>Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Matthias Hermanns, ''Die religiös-magische weltanschauung der Primitivstämme Indiens.'' Band I. Die Bhagoria Bhil. Franz Steiner Verlag. Wiesbaden 1964.</ref>
**''The Konyak Nagas'' (1969)
**''Himalayan Traders: Life in Highland Nepal'' (1975)
**''Return to the naked Nagas: an anthropologist's view of Nagaland'' 1936–1970 (1976)
**''Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival'' (1982)<ref>Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, ''Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival'', Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1982.</ref>
*Films:
**''The Men Who Hunted Heads'' (1970)
**''The land of the Gurkhas'' (1957)
**''The land of Dolpo'' (1962)

==Archives==
The papers and photographs of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf are held by [https://www.soas.ac.uk/library/archives/collections/a-z/h/ SOAS Archives]. In 2010, more than 14,000 of these images were digitised and are available online [https://digital.soas.ac.uk//results/?t=haimendorf here].

==See also==
*[[Kulturkreis]]
*[[Paul Hockings]]
*[[Stephen Fuchs]]

==References==
{{reflist}}
* Andre Gingrich: ''Konturen eines Frontwechsels: Christoph Fürer-Haimendorfs Wege vom NS-Sympathisanten zum britischen Regierungs'' in: Andre Gingrich; Peter Rohrbacher (Hg.), Völkerkunde zur NS-Zeit aus Wien (1938–1945): Institutionen, Biographien und Praktiken in Netzwerken (Phil.-hist. Kl., Sitzungsberichte 913; Veröffentlichungen zur Sozialanthropologie 27/3). Wien: Verlag der ÖAW 2021, S. 1583–1610. [[doi:10.1553/978OEAW86700]]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100401031407/http://www.seas.at/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/rmvoelkerkunde.pdf Ralf Meßner, ''Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf: Die Stellung der Naturvölker in Indien und Südostasien.'']
* Alban von Stockhausen: ''Imag(in)ing the Nagas: The Pictorial Ethnography of Hans-Eberhard Kauffmann and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf''. Arnoldsche, Stuttgart 2014, {{ISBN|978-3-89790-412-5}}.

==External links==
*[http://www.soas.ac.uk/furer-haimendorf/archive/ The Fürer-Haimendorf Archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191013064023/http://www.soas.ac.uk/furer-haimendorf/archive/ |date=13 October 2019 }}
*[https://digital.soas.ac.uk/furer Fürer-Haimendorf Collection of Photography, Notebooks, etc.]
*[http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/haimendorf/ Fürer-Haimendorf Collection]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303184927/http://dart.columbia.edu/haimendorf/index.html The Fieldwork of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf ]
* [https://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1116916 Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 17 June 1983 (video)]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Furer-Haimendorf, Christoph Von}}
[[Category:Northeast India]]
[[Category:Austrian anthropologists]]
[[Category:Travel photographers]]
[[Category:Visual anthropologists]]
[[Category:Austrian ethnographers]]
[[Category:Austrian ethnologists]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category:1909 births]]
[[Category:20th-century anthropologists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland]]
[[Category:Himalayan studies]]
[[Category:Austrian Indologists]]
[[Category:Austrian expatriates in India]]

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf - Revision history

BradyGregg4996 at 17:11, 6 March 2026